Google Glass was always a strange product. Absolutely innovative and years ahead of its time, the AR glasses asked as many questions about the technology as they answered. So much so, they hardly sold and I imagine most people thought the product was discontinued years ago. Well, not until today with Google finally sending its Glass into the sunset.
Back in 2017, from the ashes of Google Glass as a failed consumer product, the company redefined the hardware as an enterprise device. Well, that second lease of life and the conceptual Google Glass 2.0 era is coming to an end.
Google has announced it will stop selling the enterprise edition of the smart glasses. With that announcement, the lifespan of the product is coming to an end. “Thank you for over a decade of innovation and partnership,” Google says on the Glass website.
For users currently using Glass Enterprise, Google says it will keep supporting the platform until September 15, 2023. What that means is unclear as the company says it won't release any software updates during that time.
Doomed
Google Glass initially arrived in 2013, with production prototypes arriving in 2013. By 2015 Google had abandoned the product amid concerns over security and safety. It turns out that putting a camera on glasses and allowing people to walk around essentially filming everything wasn't a good idea.
Perhaps Glass was just ahead of its time, considering the hype-intrusive world of AI and hardware we live in today. Technologically the product was innovative and paved the way for more functional AR hardware, such as Microsoft's HoloLens.
Tip of the day: After years of hefting a laptop around, you inevitably build up a menagerie of Wi-Fi networks. For the most part, they'll sit on your PC, hardly used, but at times a change in configuration can make it difficult to connect to a network your computer already remembers. At this point, it can be beneficial to make Windows forget a Wi-Fi network and delete its network profile.
